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Simple Identity Theft Protection
How many of you bank, shop, or transact other business online?
There are at least 4 million Department pf Defense employees that
access their pay records online only. Even offline, stored
financial data can be placed at risk in computers that are used
on the Internet as well. As one of the fastest growing crimes in
America, identity theft is a concern for everyone.
A criminal gaining access to your bank or credit card accounts
or personal information can wreak havoc with your credit and
leave you holding the bag. Protecting your personal data at home
and online is not too painful and lowering your risk for a
reasonable effort level is well worth it.
Before we tackle the computer and online environment, let's
take a quick look at your other home risks. Your garbage can and
mail box are prime targets for identity thieves. Bills, old
checks, financial statements, credit offers, the list goes on.
All of these documents need to be shredded with a crosscut
shredder before discarding and mail should never be left in the
mail box for long. Arrange for someone to pickup mail if you are
going to gone from your home for more than a day. In short,
anything with your full name combined with any other sensitive
information should be shredded before discarding.
Phishing and social engineering are methods to get you to
divulge your data to a criminal by making you believe the
criminal represents an organization or interest with access or
rights to your information. Any phone call you receive from
someone requesting your personal information or credit card
numbers should be suspect. Request a way to call them back via
the organization's published numbers and verify the number is
associated with the organization before proceeding. Suspect good
deals that come to you out of the blue via the telephone or any
other method. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably
is.
Now for your computer, there are a few things you should do
here. Your online activities pose the greatest risk. You need a
hardware, or good software firewall. You need good Anti-Virus and
Anti-Spyware software. The software versions will need regular
updates to keep ahead of the hackers out there.
You also need to take some precautions with your own personal
online and offline habits. Online, you should use different,
complex passwords for each identity related account you access.
You should set your browser security settings as high as possible
for general surfing and avoid clicking advertising links from
unknown vendors, or links in emails that come from unknown
senders or are out of character for the known sender. Never
follow links sent via email purporting to be from your creditors
or financial institutions asking you to validate your account
information. Call them instead, if you believe it is valid. Most
financial or credit organizations will never send you an email
unless you have asked to receive account updates. The last thing
you need to be aware of online is who you are doing business
with. Be careful about providing your credit card numbers online.
While ensuring the site is secure is absolutely the bare minimum,
ensuring the vendor is honest and keeps your data secure is
necessary too.
Offline, you should secure any financial, health, insurance,
or other documents containing your personal information by using
encryption and password protection. Most financial software
packages have this feature built in. Use it as well as Windows
encrypted folders to make your private data secure from
undetected Spyware, or short term physical access to your
computer by a criminal. Don't use Windows auto-logon features and
always use complex passwords that are at least eight characters
long, contain numbers, letters, and both upper and lower case.
Never use a common word, name, or other easily guessed password.
Something like T8$f~lly can be easy to remember, though very hard
to guess and extremely time consuming to hack. Finally, change
all of your passwords frequently and use a secure password
manager to keep them organized.
The last thing you need to do is monitor your accounts and
credit. Keep on eye on your financial account activities and your
credit record. If you notice something amiss, call the financial
organization or credit reporting agency and report it, change
your passwords and pat yourself on the back for catching it
early.
My own Yahoo account was recently compromised. While this
wasn't a costly identity theft situation, it did put my name on
some rather unsavory low-level spam operations. A password change
was all that was needed to shut down the activity.
Follow the directions I've provided and you will lower your
risk of identity theft and fraud related debts to almost zero.
Keep in mind that if you have Bill Gate's level of assets, you
are in a different class of high risk targets and should hire a
security team to manage those risks and lower your insurance
rates. You can also call me and I'd be happy to help you put that
together. ;-)
Lyle Sharp - President Advotech, LLC
A small to medium business IT services provider that specializes
in affordable secure systems and practices.
http://www.advotechllc.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Credit - Google News
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